Cleveland Museum of Art

The Fall of the Angels

Auguste Rodin

Date

c. 1890–1900

Medium

marble

Culture

France, late 19th-early 20th Century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The entwined couple in this sculpture recalls the figures on Rodin’s monumental doorway The Gates of Hell . Struck by Dante Alighieri’s descriptions of the damned suffering in hell because of their sins of the flesh, Rodin populated his portal with embracing lovers symbolic of carnal desire and sensual pleasure. Here, a winged figure alludes to the biblical account of the angels who were cast out of Heaven after siding with Satan (Revelation 12:4). Rodin preferred marble for erotic subjects. The juxtaposition between the smooth, sensual surfaces of the figures and the rough-hewn areas below gives the impression that the couple is blossoming into life from hard, lifeless stone.

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